Tassajara Zen Center
Pt. 3

Tassajara is a working monastery, but If it's May through September, it's guest season.  The rest of the year is the "practice period" where students are offered an intense period of residential practice, including daily zazen (seated meditation), lectures, classes, work and close contact with their teachers.    

During this "training period" of about 100 days which is offered in the fall and winter, students spend a big chunk of the day seated cross-legged, outward facing in the zendo, eyes softly cast downward.  Their meals, 3 small bowls of rice, soup and vegetables, will be served to them where they sit.  Their morning bell calls them to the zendo at 3:50 a.m.  When their day begins they will have taken about 6 ½ hrs of shut-eye, if they plan it right.  

 But, this is the guest season and Tassajara turns into a kind of retreat center where the students (and some guests) are there to serve, as in cook, clean, manage and change sheets.(1)  There are workshops and yoga retreats, like the one that I was on.  Visitors come for days or weeks.  Many do a work exchange, spending time each morning helping in exchange for a break on their cost of housing and meals.  The income from the guest season supports not only Tassajara largely but contributes to its siblings, San Francisco Zen Center and Green Gulch Farms.  

The yoga classes used to be held in the zendo, after the zabutons, zafus, chairs and whatever, had been cleared.  After, everything had to be carefully returned to their designated spots to prepare for the next meditation period.  Not any more.  Now there's a new structure, with a wood exterior that blends with its surroundings with a modern, Architectural Design look and feel.(2)     

The yoga room surpasses any I've seen and I've seen a lot.  Twenty foot ceilings with clerestory windows (remote opening windows), cork floors and pale yellow walls. Three bladed modern fans and large, classic George Nelson bubble lamps gracefully hang from the wood-slat ceiling.  There will be no suffering with the smartly cultivated collection of yoga props, including Manduka mats, cork blocks, yoga chairs, 10 ft straps, firm bolsters and multi-colored blankets.  Add zabutons, zafus and backjacks.  During the hot days, the yoga room was the coolest spot, at least before 3 p.m.

Here. 

 Ansel Adams